"I don't like to disappoint those poor creatures. They depend so much upon the meetings—"
"I reckon they can stand it for one night," said the old man. He added,
"The poor ye have with you always."
"That's so, Coonrod," said his mother. "It's the Saviour's own words."
"Yes, mother. But they're not meant just as father used them."
"How do you know how they were meant? Or how I used them?" cried the father. "Now you just make your plans to go with the girls, Tuesday night. They can't go alone, and Mrs. Mandel can't go with them."
"Pshaw!" said Mela. "We don't want to take Conrad away from his meetun', do we, Chris?"
"I don't know," said Christine, in her high, fine voice. "They could get along without him for one night, as father says."
"Well, I'm not a-goun' to take him," said Mela. "Now, Mrs. Mandel, just think out some other way. Say! What's the reason we couldn't get somebody else to take us just as well? Ain't that rulable?"
"It would be allowable—"
"Allowable, I mean," Mela corrected herself.